Quotes & Sayings About Avoidance

The little mutton-chopped man interrupted them to point out that in his opinion good was not the avoidance of evil, but something more positive than that: it was making the world a better place. — Neil Gaiman

Amusement is a way of boredom-avoidance through external stimulation that fails to exercise our minds. It's mere diversion. — John Ortberg

Once, my writing-avoidance behavior involved me mixing up a cleaning concoction and getting some ancient stains out of the carpet. My wife liked that one. — Tim Pratt

Avoidance of sin is lighter than the pain of remorse. — Umar

Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice. — Frank Herbert

Shame often causes me to hide my mistakes from others. But really, when I make a mistake, I should make it loud and clear, so I can see that it didn't work as a strategy, and be able to make a course correction, either by myself or with the help of others. — Sharon Weil

People were freaked out, but they showed it in weird ways. Back home, people would have been weeping and doing a lot of very public group hugs. At Wexford people just aggressively pretended nothing had happened. — Maureen Johnson

Because evangelicals view their primary task as evangelism and discipleship,1 they tend to avoid issues that hinder these activities. Thus, they are generally not counter-cultural. With some significant exceptions, they avoid "rocking the boat," and live within the confines of the larger culture. At times they have been able to call for and realize social change, but most typically their influence has been limited to alterations at the margins. So, despite having the subcultural tools to call for radical changes in race relations, they most consistently call for changes in persons that leave the dominant social structures, institutions, and culture intact. This avoidance of boat-rocking unwittingly leads to granting power to larger economic and social forces. It also means that evangelicals' views to a considerable extent conform to the socioeconomic conditions of their time. — Christian Smith

Prolonged exposure therapy, a variant of flooding, attempts to maintain a high level of fear arousal, but its key premise is that all aspects of fear, as defined by Lang's three response systems (behavioral avoidance, physiological responses, and verbal behavior), have to be reduced in order for exposure to be effective. — Joseph E. Ledoux

To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education. — William Glasser

America is in a state of somnolence. It's an avoidance of paranoia through ignoring reality. — John McAfee

At some point, life starts to pass you by and becomes about avoidance. I want to stay clear from that situation, because I don't like that. — Daniel Craig

Power distance: the degree to which members of a society expect power to be unequally shared. Uncertainty avoidance: a society's reliance on social norms and procedures to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. Assertiveness: the extent to which a society encourages people to be tough, confrontational, assertive, and competitive rather than modest and tender. Humane orientation: the degree to which a society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others. Future orientation: the extent to which a society encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification. national culture The values and attitudes shared — Stephen P. Robbins

Bowlby uses the notion of faulty internal working models to describe different patterns of neurotic attachment. He sees the basic problem of 'anxious attachment" as that of maintaining attachment with a care-giver who is unpredictable or rejecting. Here the internal working model will be based not on accurate representation of the self and others, but on coping, in which the care-giver must be accommodated to. The two basic strategies here are those of avoidance or adherence, which lead to avoidant or ambivalent attachment. — Jeremy Holmes

This weapon the atomic bomb has added an additional responsibility-or, better, an additional incentive-to find a sound basis for lasting peace. It provides an overwhelming inducement for the avoidance of war. It emphasizes the crisis we face in international matters and strengthens the conviction that adequate safeguards for peace must be found. — Leslie Groves

In short, the greatest contribution to real security that science can make is through the extension of the scientific method to the social sciences and a solution of the problem of complete avoidance of war. — Edward Condon

For me, wearing a tie is a pleasure, a recherche one but a pleasure nonetheless. You could say that I'm avoiding tie avoidance. My own gorgeous collection runs into hundreds and I buy them the way I buy books - I simply can't pass a shop. I have loved them since I could spend my own money on them. — Peter York

Artists should be aware that petty stroking could be the source of arrested productivity. An artist's job includes the avoidance of premature closure by the begged or gratuitous approval of others. — Robert Genn

Christ did not die to make good works merely possible or to produce a half-hearted pursuit. He died to produce in us a passion for good deeds. Christian purity is not the mere avoidance of evil, but the pursuit of good. — John Piper

Most days go
nowhere
but the avoidance
of pain and
dissolution are
lovely. — Charles Bukowski

When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs. — Alanis Morissette

We're all forced to face our demons at some point, Miss Bennett. I believe it is part of God's plan. Whether we meet them with courage or fearful avoidance is up to the individual, but the consequences of those decisions determine the rest of our lives." She clutched the custard dish to her chest, admitting quietly, "I'm afraid for Sir." "I trust he will come through this. He is not a weak man." "No, he is not," she agreed vehemently. — Red Phoenix

It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. — Epicurus

Pain avoidance is part of life. A campaign to minimize hunger and lessen pain drives us to develop systems that will provide us with nourishing food and protective shelter. Pain is a trickster. It can send us true or false signals that confine us to our beds or spur us to roam long and far. Pain has a lifesaving function. Pain can signal us to implement evasive action or attack our problems head-on. Pain has a putative role. Pain can torture us for engaging in careless deeds. Pain performs a restorative role. Pain can tell us when we must rest. Pain is tutor and a healer. Pain implores us to take heed of our physical and mental infirmities, urges us to call out for help, and compels us to adopt modified strategies. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

But avoidance allows you to believe that you're making all kinds of strides when you're not. — Liz Murray

Tantra has to do with the reconciliation of opposites. All the yogas recommend that you avoid certain experiences. In tantra there is no avoidance. — Frederick Lenz

Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain. — Friedrich Nietzsche

...avoidance of small mistakes makes the large ones more severe. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Homelessness is the fundamental idea of salvation in Jainism. It means the breaking off of all earthly relations, and therefore, above all, indifference to general impressions and avoidance of all worldly motives, the ceasing to act, to hope, to desire. — Max Weber

The traditional approach to an unknown risk is avoidance. — James F. Clapp III

Have we ever thought that being lost is our destination? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, "Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other; it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, as long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, the paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now. — Ronald Reagan

Business crises energize me. Personal crises devastate me. The doctors call it an avoidance tendency. (Mirena to Eve) — J.D. Robb

Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We want to 'write in' our plan and 'write out' the consequence. When we do that, we're headed 'right back' to what we foolishly thought we could 'write out. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Such movies are always a danger ... falling in love is something most adults have actually experienced ... The theme is universal and encourages ... unhealthy comparisons ... why can't our lives be like that? It's a box left unopened, and its avoidance explains the continued popularity of vampire epics and martial-arts extravaganzas. — David Sedaris

The Pharisees had an ethic of avoidance, and Jesus had an ethic of involvement. — Mark Buchanan

God planted fear in the soul as truly as he planted hope and courage. It is a kind of bell or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance on the approach of danger. It is the soul's signal for rallying. — Henry Ward Beecher

Loss avoidance must be the cornerstone of your investment philosophy. — Seth Klarman

Fear of success is far more dangerous than fear of failure, because the subconscious mind works to prevent that which it fears. People may fear success because of low self-esteem and feeling of not deserving it; because it will increase what others expect of them. Fear of success shows up as anxiety, indecision, avoidance, procrastination or acceptance of mediocrity. — Joe Tye

Collision avoidance systems are the next big radio frequency (RF) toxin to hit the USA general population as they become standard safety equipment in most new cars. — Steven Magee

In the theory of psycho-analysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure. — Sigmund Freud

Andrea Leadsom also denies any tax avoidance, says she 'shopped around' for a good deal and it was from a British bank that booked the biz in Jersey. — Laura Kuenssberg

Once one is convinced of the idea of eternal life or death, the person may do almost anything to achieve the reward or avoid punishment. He may fly an airplane into a building or become a missionary to another county. She may become a celibate nun or vow to raise a quiver full of children and homeschool them according to her religion. At the very least, the person will attend church regularly, give money, pray and do other things to ensure good standing with the deity. The root of this action is the hope for a reward and avoidance of punishment. — Darrel Ray

If it's cross-country ski season, I'll be out doing that, or snowshoeing up in Quebec. In my California home, I go to the local Y and I like doing yoga. It's been hugely beneficial to me in injury avoidance. — Neil Peart

Thus, I can recognize that I have been unfair and hurtful to my child (or my spouse or my friend) and need to make amends. But I don't want to admit I made a mistake, so I procrastinate, claiming that I am still "thinking" about the situation. This is the opposite of living consciously. At a fundamental level, it is an avoidance of consciousness - avoidance of the meaning of what I am doing; avoidance of my motives; avoidance of my continuing cruelty. — Nathaniel Branden

Being satisfied with the little we have; academically, spiritually, financially, ecumenically or otherwise will prevent a lot of problems from coming to us, and our dependence in our abilities and talents will go as far as bringing us satisfaction in life. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The obvious danger is that in some situations [denial] can lead to procrastination in seeking help or to avoidance of action that might prevent harm. — Shlomo Breznitz

? People are still ill from the after-effects of these priestly quack-cures! For example, think of certain diets (avoidance of meat), of fasting, sexual abstinence — Anonymous

The two-fold goal of all human striving is the avoidance of pain, and the fulfillment of happiness. — Swami Kriyananda

Landsman has put a lot of work into the avoidance of having to understand concepts like that of the eruv, but he knows that it's a typical Jewish ritual dodge, a scam run on God, that controlling motherfucker. — Michael Chabon

Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries because it will be a war. The battle falls into two categories: outside resistance we get from others and the resistance we get from ourselves. — Henry Cloud

All the textbooks talk about avoidance as a classic hallmark of anxiety disorder. So you need a therapist who is sympathetic and understanding but will also push you to do precisely the things that scare you. — Scott Stossel

Nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the first person singular) — Dorothy L. Sayers

A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment. — B.F. Skinner

Avoidance is paying forward that which I would be much wiser to pay off. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

But we always avoided talking about these things - difficult things - and I wondered if that meant we'd be a little uncomfortable with or disappointed by each other for the rest of our lives. — Catherine Lacey

Fear of Trying New Things
High school is a time to figure out your interests. There are many clubs and groups that cover a wide variety of subjects. If you have social anxiety, however, you may be afraid of trying new things.
As we read earlier, many people with social anxiety are perfectionists. When you try something new, there is always a possibility that you won't be good at it. It is much safer to stick with what you know and avoid the possibility that you might fail or embarrass yourself in front of others.
In the future, however, you may regret not taking part in more activities. You may be upset that you did not take advantage of opportunities. Avoiding new activities now creates a pattern of avoidance that can be difficult to break. — Heather Moehn

Avoidance is a great tool to get away from food in my face all day long. — Jennifer Hudson

Tantra means the avoidance of a set or defined form of spirituality. Tantra is intuitive self-discovery. — Frederick Lenz

I often work by avoidance. — Brian Eno

Too often fantasy is not a rich elaboration of life designed to enhance our existence, rather it is our pell-mell escape from life with the intent of exiting this existence. And the most imaginative fantasy of all is to somehow think that I can do that in the first place. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Apple raised $17 billion in a bond offering in 2013. Not to invest in new products or business lines, but to pay a dividend to stockholders. The company is awash with cash, but much of that money is overseas, and there would be a tax charge if it were repatriated to the USA. For many other companies, the tax-favoured status of debt relative to equity encourages financial engineering. Most large multinational companies have corporate and financial structures of mind-blowing complexity. The mechanics of these arrangements, which are mainly directed at tax avoidance or regulatory arbitrage, are understood by only a handful of specialists. Much of the securities issuance undertaken by Goldman Sachs was not 'helping companies to grow' but represented financial engineering of the kind undertaken at Apple. What — John Kay

Instead of attention being directed to people and what war would do to their lives, it was turned to the abstraction of the nation. The survival of the nation in the evolutionary struggle, the refusal to accept an insult to the nation, the avoidance of the nation being humiliated or dishonoured, seemed of supreme importance. Nations as imaginary people were put before the real people who made them up. — Jonathan Glover

Also unfortunately, Congress is far too busy asking if baseball players are really as strong as they seem and trying to choke bankers with wads of cash to grant more funds to such trifling matters as the avoidance of space bullets, so they won't give NASA the money — Robert Brockway

The pleasant life is not produced by continual drinking and dancing, nor sexual intercourse, nor rare dishes of sea food and other delicacies of a luxurious table. On the contrary, it is produced by sober reasoning which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, driving away beliefs which are the source of mental disturbances. — Epicurus

There is indeed something deeply wrong with a person who lacks principles, who has no moral core. There are, likewise, certainly values that brook no compromise, and I would count among them integrity, fairness, and the avoidance of cruelty. But I have never accepted the argument that principle is compromised by judging each situation on its own merits, with due appreciation of the idiosyncrasy of human motivation and fallibility. — Sonia Sotomayor

Often life is a frantic avoidance of the truth. — Adyashanti

People spend entire lifetimes trying to avoid the things that have already happened. — Silvia Hartmann

The three principal samskaras have to do with sex, money and power. In all those countless incarnations that one goes through in the religious practice, the avoidance is tremendous. We brand those things as evil. — Frederick Lenz

There is no avoidance in delay. — Aeschylus

Rather than trying to trick ourselves, we can teach ourselves, avoiding temptation until the act of avoidance itself becomes habitual and automatic. III. — Sheena Iyengar

The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. — Margaret Atwood

We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitute the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day. (p.28) — Antonio R. Damasio

The problem with trying to find your happiness through avoidance is the nature of reality. Reality simply does not allow us to evade unwanted experiences. Sure, we might be able to escape a few {...] but the evasive life often comes at a cost, like having to live your life in terror. Even if we can successfully ward off some terrifying experiences, we can not advert them all. Particularly, the most unpleasant ones: sickness, old age and death. If our strategy has been to flea unpleasant circumstances, when they come to meet us - as they surely will - our suffering will be great indeed. — Mark W. Muesse

A great part of what unmanned me was distress at the destruction of my own body. It was odd to realise that I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing. — Robin Hobb

The angry reaction supports the academic literature on Appalachian Americans. In a December 2000 paper, sociologists Carol A. Markstrom, Sheila K. Marshall, and Robin J. Tryon found that avoidance and wishful-thinking forms of coping "significantly predicted resiliency" among Appalachian teens. Their paper suggests that hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist. This tendency might make for psychological resilience, but it also makes it hard for Appalachians to look at themselves honestly. We — J.D. Vance

Holiness is the sum of a million little things - the avoidance of little evils and little foibles, the setting aside of little bits of worldliness and little acts of compromise, the putting to death of little inconsistencies and little indiscretions, the attention to little duties and little dealings, the hard work of little self-denials and little self-restraints, the cultivation of little benevolences and little forbearances. — Kevin DeYoung

Some well-meaning folks think if we stop talking about racism, it'll magically disappear, like the smell of an errant fart. But like a fart, people might try to be polite and ignore it, but everyone knows it's there. Avoidance has never been a great tactic in solving any problem. For most situations in life, not addressing what's going wrong only makes matters worse. It's like someone breaks your arm, and the person who slammed the baseball bat into it is saying, 'The only reason it won't heal is because you keep complaining that it hurts.' How about you get me a cast so the bone can set straight again? America does not want to put the effort into providing this cast. This is why we must talk about race, and we must do it openly. — Luvvie Ajayi

I read recently in an article by G.K. Chesterton, that sex without gestation and parturition is like blowing the trumpets and waving the flags without doing any of the fighting. From a woman such words, though displaying inexperience, might come with dignity; from a man they are an unforgivable, intolerable insult. What is man's part in sex but a perpetual waving of flags and blowing of trumpets and avoidance of the fighting? — Dora Russell

The secret of the enjoyment of pleasure is to know when to stop. Man doesn't learn this secret easily, but to shun pleasure altogether is cowardly avoidance of a difficult job. For we have to learn the art of enjoying things BECAUSE they are impermanent. — Alan Watts

To his ear, of course, she suffered some from that malady of her generation- an almost laconic indifference toward speaking concisely- a circling and avoidance of linguistic specificity that bordered on a verbal form of shoulder-shrugging. — Steve Amick

The solitude and peace of mind are serving me quite well, not the least of which is due to the excellent and truly enjoyable relationship with my cousin; its stability will be guaranteed by the avoidance of marriage. — Albert Einstein

But avoidance is only part of the biblical approach to media. The Christian life is not only concerned with avoiding immorality; it is also consumed with pursuing Christ. In putting off "the deeds of darkness," we must also "put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:12). — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Because we have never been taught any other way to meet our distress, we don't realize how much our habits of avoidance or brooding are making things worse, turning momentary tiredness into exhaustion, momentary fear into chronic worry, and momentary sadness into chronic unhappiness and depression. So it isn't our fault that we end up exhausted, anxious, or depressed. We have been given only certain tools to deal with things we don't like: get rid of it, work harder, be better, be perfect - and if we fail to make things different, we too easily conclude that we are a failure as a person. — Ed Halliwell

Thinking, even when thinking is difficult, versus nonthinking Awareness, even when awareness is challenging, versus unawareness Clarity, whether or not it comes easily, versus obscurity or vagueness Respect for reality, whether pleasant or painful, versus avoidance of reality Respect for truth versus rejection of truth Independence versus dependence Active orientation versus passive orientation Willingness to take appropriate risks, even in the face of fear, versus unwillingness Honesty with self versus dishonesty Living in and being responsible to the present versus retreating into fantasy Self-confrontation versus self-avoidance Willingness to see and correct mistakes versus perseverance in error Reason versus irrationalism — Nathaniel Branden

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter. — Matsuo Basho

I can't talk about my childhood at all, because cannot say "I" when I mean "we," and if I say "we" it leads to a conversation about how I have a dead sister, instead of what I want to talk about. I found that out in the summer. So I don't talk about it. — Jo Walton

While total avoidance of the wayward brother is not necessarily instructed, it is the case that contact with the sinning brother or sister should be confined to interaction that would bring to mind the guilty party's sin and constantly urge the impenitent party to return to the fold. — Kyle Butt

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. — Saul Bellow

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American aggression - thus tax refusal, draft refusal, avoidance of work that can be used by the agencies of militarism and repression, all seem to me essential. — Noam Chomsky

In the greatest art, one is always aware of things that cannot be said ... of the contradiction between expression and the presence of the inexpressible. Stylistic devices are also techniques of avoidance. The most potent elements of a work of art are, often, its silences. — Susan Sontag

Ignorance is avoiding that which stands in front of me out of the misplaced hope that it will put what I'm ignoring behind me. Instead, it's most certain to drop it on top of me. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The flinch is your real opponent, and information won't help you fight it. It's behind every unhappy marriage, every hidden vice, and every unfulfilled life. Behind the flinch is pain avoidance, and dealing with pain demands strength you may not think you have. — Julien Smith

With respect to the acceptance of dissociative disorders, as with most issues in life, it is counterproductive to spend time trying to convince people of things they don't want to know. — Warwick Middleton

The aim of the gospel is the creation of people who are passionate for doing good rather than settling for the passionless avoidance of evil. — John Piper

We say, "It wasn't that bad. It was all my fault. I'm making all this stuff up. "
All my life, I spoke bitterly of my mother's treatment of me as a child.
Friends asked, "What did she do to you?" I couldn't really describe it, and in frustration would say, "Well, she didn't lock us up in closets." in fact, my mother behaved much worse than that, but by focusing on the empty closet, I avoided looking at what waited beyond it. — Sarah E. Olson

If suffering is ubiquitous in life, the withdrawal from and avoidance of suffering is accordingly the withdrawal from and avoidance of life. You — Kelly G. Wilson

It would be a very accurate historian who could pinpoint the precise day when the Japanese changed from being fiendish automatons who copied everything from the West, to becoming skilled and cunning engineers who would leave the West standing. But the Wasabi had been designed on that one confused day, and combined the traditional bad points of most Western cars with a host of innovative disasters the avoidance of which had made firms like Honda and Toyota what they were today. Newt — Terry Pratchett